In this series going to be reviewing on the quality of products, usability of them of me/the customer, the value for the price, and how helpful their customer service is since subscriptions can be tricky! This is the second in the series and at the end I’ll rank them!!
Birch Box – $15 and Free Shipping
When you sign up for Birch Box you take a quick to customize your products! This way you have a lot higher chance of getting something that you can use! I enjoy the boxes with this option so much. I have VERY sensitive skin and Im picky about my colors. My hair is also thin, straight, and baby fine. So there’s not a whole whole lot that I can get out of grab bags styles.
Product Quality – I’ve gotten three boxes from them (some free due to promotions) and the brands inside have been top notch. There are some newer brands like Birch’s own but they were really solid. The detangler shown above is now a favorite. That said, compared to Ispy, they aren’t super high end brands. 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Usability – Im sorta satisfied with this. However my ratio for usability is a little low or hit and miss. I’ve gotten double products in the SAME BOX, but I also seem to be able to use only three out of the five products. For some it was color, for the others it was skin type. I went back and double checked my quiz and everything was correct. Im bummed because I feel like the quiz is kinda moot. 🌟🌟🌟
Value For Price – Holy hell the samples are SO DAMN SMALL for, like, half of the products. Enough that it actually annoyed me. We are talking actual, tiny ass samples, not even really travel size for the most part and NO full size ones ever. I donno. I keep wanting to give this more chances but after three boxes, I give up. I feel kinda ripped off. 🌟🌟
Customer Service – Weew boy. Im rather annoyed about this. While not as bad as Lip Monthy’s non-existent customer service, it was VERY difficult to get in touch with Birch. I tried the Site Help Form, Directly Emailing them, and both; Nothing for over a week. In a desperate attempt to fix a code for a free box that showed as registered but then disappeared into the ether, I reached out to Facebook and heard back in a couple of days. They were lovely once I got a hold of someone, but I really have to knock off points for how impossible it was to get to a human. Sorry! ❤ 🌟🌟🌟
I can’t use half of this and they are SUPER small.
Finishing Thoughts – Im pretty bummed about this one. The sizes alone just boggle my mind compared to some that I’ve gotten and some that I have yet to review (Oh hello depression). I’ve already cancled by the time I’ve written this. I’d be delighted to get this as a gift, but man I don’t feel like it’s worth the money. I am a sad glitter fairy. Bye Birch.
Lip Monthly, Minus one product that I couldn’t remember since I forgot to take a pic for the blog! LIKE A BOSS!
I’m going to be reviewing on the quality of products, the value for the price, and how helpful their customer service is since subscriptions can be tricky! This is the second in the series and at the end I’ll rank them!!
Lip Monthly – $12.50 and Free Shipping
When you sign up for Lip Monthly, they send you a bag right away, whether it’s “this month’s” or “next month’s” depends on if you sign up before or after the 15th. They have a store with their own brand products and not the items that you get in your bag.
Product Quality – I didn’t recognize the brands too well, but I admit that Im not the absolute biggest beauty guru. I’ve liked all of the products that I’ve received, heck I even have a new favorite lipstick! Through browsing ebay I saw an occasional mid/high-ish range products, but they seemed rare and few between. 🌟🌟🌟
Usability – There isn’t any customization for Lip Monthly, and even though I like the products that I got, some of the colors weren’t great and I HATE LIP GLOSS and there’s no way to pass that message along. 🌟🌟
Value For Price – This one is pretty decent. Im not sure if I’ll keep subscribed to this one in comparison to others. I feel like I got $12’s worth of product but not as though I’d gotten the best deal ever. 🌟🌟🌟
Customer Service – Lip Monthly likely has lost me from this alone. Their customer serviced is non-existent. I’ve waited for more than two week to hear back via email from a form on their site. Then I tried to reach out trough Facebook (which worked for Birch Box), and it’s been about a solid week since then. 🌟
Finishing Thoughts – Im really sad about this one overall now that I’ve made the review, I see how sub-par it kinda was. Esp after finding that new lipstick that I love so much! I was fairly happy but looking back this must have been because it was my first one. It’s not a BAD box by any means, but holy hell the customer service is YIKES! It makes me nervous that I never heard back for if I ever have problems.
With a wedding coming up and second puberty hitting my face like a ton of bricks I’ve realized that I need to start actually doing some skincare. I’ve also been working to find new looks . So where better to start than these Beauty Boxes that are all the rage? Some have been great! Others… not to much! (And Im giving second chances). But this one is the only one currently I am confident about! Without further ado and some Christmas Money let’s dive in!
I’m going to be reviewing on the quality of products, the value for the price, usability, and how helpful their customer service is since subscriptions can be tricky!
IPSY – $12 and Free Shipping
When you sign up for ISPY they have you a quiz that’s rather in depth and get all sorts of things from what you like and use, to what your skin tone and features are. They even ask what high end brands that you like or want to try.
Product Quality – The products are GREAT! I got gutsy and marked myself down for some FANCY brands and boy did IPSY deliver. That silver tube in the bag? The full product is around ninety dollars for a full bottle. In the other bags I’ve gotten from buying a few lots on ebay at more than half off (so they aren’t customized for me but the original products) I’ve noticed a trend of both luxury brands and more accessible ones. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Usability – It seems that the pattern is that I can use or have use for about four out of the five products sent. However Im surprised by this because IPSY has you take a quiz about your skin type. I would have thought this would be a banger straight through. Im not upset though, it’s still a good deal! 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Value For Price – WONDERFUL! The size of these products for the most part usable sizes. At LEAST a travel size sample. In other brands I’ve gotten actual freebee size samples that barely are good for one or two tries which doesn’t leave you with time to make a decision. HOWEVER about one and SOMETIMES two are the bitty size which is a bummer. Plus the bags are super cute! 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Customer Service – So far from the other three I’ve tried, these guys ALSO win in this category. Not only do they get points for ACTUALLY responding to questions/concerns, they were super kind and on top of it. It took only a couple days to hear back and once my ticket was picked up I was hearing back easily within a day. I did have an issue where two of my bags straight from them had an opened product (They were past bags and I think some returns fell in). They tried to make it right by refunding me $5 for both of them, but it wasn’t $5 each. They also didn’t seem to pay attention to the photos that I sent which extended the back and forth for a couple days by asking me which products were opened when they were right in the photo. 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Finishing Thoughts – So far Ipsy has been the hands down winner. Im giving some of the others a chance to redeem themselves, but none of them can hold a candle to ISPY at this time. I will likely keep this subscription after my reviews are done.
This is an old costume back from I think 2009! This was one of the most intensive costumes I’ve ever done and it had a lot of hands in on it! The power pack was wood! The pauldrons were a paint mixer bowl thingy. The bracers were plastic cups!
It can be funny how much internalized stigma we have about medication. I considered myself super pro-medication, and yet I was always anxious about starting to take anti-depressants for anxiety. What if it made things worse? I knew withdraw was a thing, how bad was that? After a rather long journey of actual years of watching myself go up and down, through mental health hell and back; I hit a new low and for no reason at all.
I was 29 at the time and everything in my life was actually going well, but I kept having horrible panic attacks. I couldn’t sleep. Things were stressing me way more than usual and it just wouldn’t STOP. Even changing my environment wasn’t helping. Furthermore it was getting harder and harder to get out of bed. It seemed like every day took more effort.
I have an Associate in Arts with a focus in Psych. I know the symptoms of depression, but -I- couldn’t POSSIBLY be depressed. I was always high energy and go go go. Anyways, I had to get everything brain related re-diagnosed for college to get access to for my disability aid in my classes. I was a bit annoyed by this, and by ‘a bit annoyed’ I mean rather resentful and…. you guessed it, ANXIOUS! I was cross that I had to have my parents pay for a test for the severe ADHD that I’ve had as long as I can remember.
Anyways, the long and short of it was a new list of diagnoses that I already knew I had, but several of them had never been formally on paper: Severe ADHD, Moderate Generalized Anxiety, Mild OCD, Mild PTSD, and oddly… Borderline Depression. When I finally broke down after my (what felt like) 20th Anxiety attack not long after the test, and went to the doctor where she talked me into the SSRI. Gently, she also pointed out that it was used to treat almost everything on my list of Brand New Brain Things.
I was hesitant, but I had to do something, so I agreed. She went over how I had to take them on time everyday and that I can’t just stop taking them or I could go into withdraw. She did note that she was putting me on one of the more gentle ones which was not known for hard withdraw but how it was still important to make sure we don’t have to find out.
A GREAT video on SSRI’sif you want to learn some of the SCIENCE behind them!
THE SSRIs
I started on Lexapro/Escitalopram 5mg for the first week then up to 10mg after that. They also told me that it will take a few weeks to feel a difference so to stick with it.
Within an hour of me taking my first pill, I became fairly nauseous even though I was entirely distracted with the game I was playing, the nausea was hard to ignore. But I ate a little bit of mac-n-cheese and some tums and it moved back into manageable. That night happened to be a hard night, I had learned a friend went into the hospital and we hadn’t heard back.
Then something odd happened; I became tired at a reasonable hour of 3am rather than my usual 6 or 7am. And I went to sleep and actually slept, abet with some crazy dreams. The next day, I woke up and grabbed my phone to start my morning wake up slog and realized pretty quickly that I FELT awake. Getting out of bed was nothing that day and despite not hearing about my friend, I only had one panic attack about it and it was fairly mild.
The next couple of days were the same, I was able to fall asleep, stay asleep (with INTENSE dreams), I was able to get up, and I oddly had a LOT of motivation to just get stuff done. All through a MONSTER headache. Something that never happens. If my head hurts, that’s something that just saps my energy so much. By this point, I realized that it was an anomaly, even on ‘good days’ I never did this well. A scooped up my meds in disbelief because there was NO WAY it was them already, right? They said it would be WEEKS. I had been skeptical about them in the first place so I wasn’t experiencing a placebo effect. If anything I had been worried that my doubt would hurt my ability to judge it fairly.
After a little bit of research it turns out that some anxiety patients respond rather quickly, even within hours to SSRIs. And I was responding just fine on only 5mg.
The Good
~ WAY fewer anxiety attacks and the ones that I do experience are a LOT smaller. They are so manageable now.
~ Sleep Schedule started to normalize. I’m still a super night owl, but Im not still awake at dawn.
~ I have a lot of ‘get up a go’. I don’t feel like I HAVE to lay in bed forever waking up. (This is one of the first things to go away when Im about ready for a dose change.)
~ I feel more like getting stuff DONE. Oddly, it helps to balance out my ADHD. I’m still a hot mess and an agent of chaos, but I’m LESS of a hot mess and an agent of chaos!
~ Im less constantly exhausted. (Another thing that is a sign for a dose change.)
The “Meh”
~ The near euphoria of the few days after a dose change go away quickly but not in a ‘crash’ sort of way. It sort of just trickles away.
~ I had to increase my dosage pretty quickly, I’ll update this once I talk to the doctors because it might be time for another and it’s only been a few months.
~ My dreams are WILD! Almost nightmare-like however they aren’t -stressful- like a nightmare. I use to wake up in knots over nightmares and now ones that are on entire other levels don’t even make me blink when I wake up. They are so vivid that I can feel the temperature or the taste of the air in the dreamworld. I can FEEL the things that I put my hands on. Oddly, they’ve been a lot of me being more of a hero than a victim even when attacked or chased. Yes, I’m being chased by a monster, and yes it already cut off my arm, but Im helping this other person escape too, lets figure out how to survive together.
The Bad
~ Sex drive took a HUGE hit at first. NOTHING could make me orgasm but this improved after a couple of weeks after a dose change.
~ Headaches, oh holy hell the headache the first few days after a dose change. Manageable with Excedrin Migraine. The good news is that it never went into full Migraine mode which I do get. These went away for me after a week.
~ I HAVE HAVE HAVE to eat it with a lot of food or at least something bland and starchy. Once I only took it with an orange and a nearly painted the floor with my insides.
~ If I forget to take them the anxiety comes back, HARD and it’s almost impossible to sleep without sleep aides. More than usual.
Closing Out
Honestly, I shouldn’t have been so worried about them all of this time. I wish I had started them years ago when my GP first touched on the subject. I’ve been REALLY lucky that I responded so well to my first one but after 7 years of hell trying to find the right birth control, I guess the universe just owed me one. I’ve had a VERY positive experience and while I know a few people who’ve had bad ones, for the most part my friends and I who have been on them have seen a positive influence on our lives.
After picking up a refill I realized that I wish I had read a nice and personal post like this to get a really experience on it. So here it is! Well, was. We’re done now!
Thanks so much for reading and stopping by. I hope if you’re considering SSRI’s that this was a bit helpful for you.
Today is an important remembrance day for the LGBT community as 311 transgender people have been murdered worldwide since October 2018 to Sept 2019. And those are just the ones that have been reported. Furthermore since 2008, there have been more than 3,000 trans and gender-fluid persons murdered worldwide. Knowing this is the first step because one of the most important things you can do is raise and spread awareness. Transgender people are murdered for just existing. In the U.S? Around 65% of the murders were women of color.
This also means that you need to pause and realize when you’re being (and often subconsciously) trans-phobic. Check yourself when you think something like: “Uh that dress makes her look really masc.” You’re going to think shitty things, society has taught you to. But something that you will see me write over and over and over is:
The thing you think first is what society taught you. The thing you think second and correct yourself (or act) on defines who you are.
By changing and retraining how you think will change how you act. Don’t beat yourself up for thinking something shitty because then that starts a spiral, but ABSOLUTELY correct yourself. “No, that dress is lovely and she looks lovely in it. I bet it makes her happy.” This can apply to every social issue these days.
One of the hardest and yet most critical thing you can do is to be the change that you want to see in the world. That means to check your friends and family when they say something shitty, even when there’s no LGBT people around. It’s on us to start retraining society, not the oppressed groups. So don’t let people dead name celebrities. You can say. “I think Caitlyn Jenner is a piece of shit for her politics, but that’s not an excuse for us to dead name or misgender her.” If they keep doing it, every time they say “Bruce” you say “Caitlyn”. If they get pissy, just shrug and counter “I’m just going to keep helping you until you remember her name.”
Now, I am not trans, I do however have many friends who are and these are the things that they’ve shared for how you can help them if you know someone!
– Correct pronouns FOR THEM. (Of course ask you person if they want you to do this, but most prefer someone else do it. ) If someone KEEPS doing it, you can pause and reintroduce them if you can’t leave. “This is Rebecca.” Or just get them out of there. How confrontational you should be about it is going to depend on your person. Your person should be your guild in all of these things.
– If they just came out, remember how scary it is. I full out confess that I am bad about this. In my mind, she’s a woman, cool, lets go. But the look of terror from some of their eyes when they have to pee is something that always brings me back. One moment that brought one of my friend’s to tears was my mom taking her hand and taking her to the bathroom and DragonCon. It was no biggie for us, but for her it meant the world.
– Offer to go WITH THEM to things when they first come out. Of course let them lead the way and their comfort zone, but offer to take them clothes shopping. Be there when they want to have their first day Out.
– Be their new family if they need it. Isolation is one of the most mentally crippling things for people. A lot of people in the LGBT community and especially our transgender friends have a heavily amount of trouble with their family. Many of them are completely ostracized. It’s the holidays be their family!
Look, I realize nothing in here is revolutionary. And frankly most of the people who this will reach are going to nod and go ‘well duh’. But I wrote this just in case someone like me a few years ago was wondering what they could do to help. Sometimes the really small things still make a huge impact.
The moment I saw the new Captain Marvel movie I knew that I wanted to cosplay her. She was everything I had always wanted in a female lead super hero movie! But I knew that never in my life would I have the time or patience to make this on my own…. So for the first time, I bought my costume in full (not even a closet play).
And I don’t regret it for a fuckin second!!! This turned out so well! My favorite thing was the reactions I got from kids. But none of them more enthusiastic than the little girls. I would be walking around the convention and hear a little voice go “CAPTAIN MARVEL!!!”. Once this happened and just as a turned around to smile at them, I instead found said little voice now attached to my leg. I wonder if my happy tears showed up in the photo that the momma took.
I always loved glitter. This is nothing new, however in late December of 2017, I went balls deep into the stuff. You see, glitter had always made me happy. A little dose of dopamine straight to my brain. But I never wore it with any regularity until then.
Why? I was depressed and suffering from crippling anxiety that a got as a pre-order bonus with my very severe ADHD. I’ll talk more about these later, but the big thing is that this stuff is EXHAUSTED. Not only did it take time to put on, I had been working at a very hyper conservative dress coded place that would send you home for too much eye shadow for just shy of ten years total.
It wasn’t until I was free of that place did I go back to school and picked up work at a nearby big box store. Said big box store is one of the best things that have happened to me professionally. This will be another entire blog post, but the important part for today is that I could wear my hair, nails, make up, jewelry however I wanted so long as I wore the right pants and shirt. Slowly, in a positive work environment, I was starting to heal wounds that I never even knew a had.
This brings us to December 27th, 2017. The one year anniversary of the passing of the Great Space Mom herself, the Goddess of mental health: Carrie Fisher.
Now if you aren’t aware of the Glitter-For-Carrie movement, please go take a moment and read. [ https://www.themarysue.com/glitter-for-carrie/ ] The long and short is that she helped herself on dark days by wearing glitter. And that anyone who seemed to be having a bad day, she’d whip out a pack of it and glitter them up. “You’ve been blessed by Carrie” people would call it at DragonCon (which I’m a long time Vet of).
So on the anniversary of her passing, I coated myself with glitter. And as I looked into the mirror I realized how genius it was. I INSTANTLY got a jolt of dopamine in my brain. This stuff had always made me smile, how could I let it fall out of my life? Well now it would fall off of my body in a puff of fae like clouds. I also stopped caring if people were turned off by it. So what? It made me happy. I made sure I was getting bio-degradable so not even the little sea creatures would be hurt by it. I sure as shit wasn’t going to worry about if a man would get wounded by a fleck of fukkin plastic. (Note: Reuel/Fiance is a saint about and just accepts it as a part of me). I even weaponize it on Black Friday!
You see, I am rather petite. And people are REALLY bad about walking INTO me. Esp guys for some reason. There’s a whole study on how society trains women to sidestep men, and men to ‘hold their ground’ when paths will collide, it’s actually super cool to read if you’re into that kinda thing. But point being, I get rammed into a lot. I don’t see well in the first place, and Im bad about tunnel vision. Not only that, some people just won’t even meet me half walk and make a half step. So when I’m body checked?
PUFF!
Anyways, it’s become a thing at work when co-workers hug me and I’ll be around the corner and someone tells them: “Ah! I see you that you gave Laura a hug today!” I also tend to be the go to person for friends and co-workers who have questions about mental health and social issues. So in my own little way, I carry just a small peace of Space Mom’s torch. Glitter is just the really overt one that brings smiles.
It’s a part of me now; my hair, my nails, my make up, my clothes. So not only did I take the step to get on an SSRI after many years of hesitation, I let myself just be me.
Frankly this should have been Shittastic… and yet it was more intriguing than anything!
I was almost a sommelier but was too broke for the test. So here is my not actually certified review of this OLD ASS cheap wine:
Color:
Holy crap this is dehydrated piss yellow. Like this is the color you’re going to pee after you chug this whole bottle.
I could write an entire piece on how fuggin yellow this wine is, and yet no other works come to me beyond ‘Dehydrated piss’.
Lets move on!
Smell:
Did I mention PISSY yet? Like this thing smells like an old ass Sav Blanc that never grew out of AXE body spray.
Okay,
more serious this time: It is pissy yet floral. Like finding a bottle
of your grandma’s perfume that is long past it’s peak scent and has
changed with age. It’s a bit musky, but still definitely floral. Beyond
the color, I found the scent the most surprising.
Overall
the smell is very light, which is why I dont think it’s Turned yet. If
it was Turned it would have smelled like vinegar ass.
Flavor:
Once obnoxiously sweet
it’s now mellowed out a great deal over time. It’s deffo started to
‘turn’, but the vinegar flavor isnt really pronounced yet. I’d say this
would have been at it’s best about six months ago. Maybe Eight.
It’s
still very floral, but is now lacking that iconic Riesling
violet/lavender flavor to it. It’s matured into a very smooth sip with a
bit of a forward bite of sweetness without a kick in the face purple
flower mouth punch that’s iconic to the grape. It’s now turned into an
almost boozey rosewater forwardness.
The finish is
intriguing. HOLY TANG for the first 3 three seconds post sip, but unlike
usual… it just POOFS into a sort of fun after taste. It’s definitely
got a pissy bite to it there like an older Sav Blanc, which is almost
‘ew’ but it’s not overpowering. THEN it transforms into this Violet
Perfume kinda flavor.
Mouthfeel:
YUP, still a Riesling. Bitey, sassy, but just a
little fuller in the mouth and thicker on the tongue than normal. She’s
not young anymore; This wine knows how to kiss.
In Summary:
Im pleasantly surprised that this
cheap wine actually held out this long. Im also super intrigued at the
changes this has gone through. I’ve been sipping it then entire review
and Im pleasantly buzzed. I am well on my way to white gurl wasted and
enjoying the journey. (Spoiler: Im a SUPER lightweight.)
Cupcake,
I turned 30 a few days ago. I feel like you and I are now mature, older
women who are ready to get out there and take over the world. Thanks
for the girls night in. We’ll have to do this again. Cause… there’s like
four more glasses left and I’ll be damned if it’s going to waste!
Soft Spoiler Level Note: I talk about things from the trailer and images that were released pre-release and previews. I also talk about some general observations of background characters and general personalities of characters without story spoilers. However if you consider any of this Spoilers then you might wanna come back after you played!
When I first saw the trailer for Jedi: Fallen Order, my breath caught. I actually nearly peed myself with excitement right there in the break room at work. I DID squeak and make noises unbefitting of a Grown Ass Adult™. Yet when I saw it was being made by EA, I was admittedly a bit nervous.
After the Battlefront 2 Debacle????? HMM….
However, once EA came out with assurances that it would be a story mode only and no loot boxes, I let myself become optimistic….
… AND BUY A NEW GRAPHICS CARD TO HANDLE IT YAAAAAS! (Which I will have to review LATER!) Because for the first time in YEARS, I pre-ordered a game. For PC, and made sure I got myself a controller to play it on. Because I wanted to play this on my gaming rig that I build myself for the pretty graphics but still have the controller experience that the game was designed for.
Initially I was a bit “Hmmm” on another white, male, protagonist. HOWEVER I felt better the more I looked into the cast and found a fairly decent amount of variety in the supporting cast. The guy/gal ratio ended up being pretty much on point to about half-ISH. Although I would have to count to be certain. But even in the background NPCs there were tons of people of different ethnicities and lots of women! The antagonist is even a BADASS woman.
All of that said, I INSTANTLY fell in love with Cal. I mean LOOK AT HIS FACE. My ovaries exploded in a cloud of I NEED TO MOM YOU.
Cal is a fun protagonist. He’s a great Jedi in the making. Despite his sad, puppy, adolescent eyes, he’s a good kiddo at heart. He does have some teenage moments, but I think that just drives home that he’s still young and thinks like a teen. Something which is important. I actually like that you can’t really change who the character is because frankly this is an adventure game, not an RPG. Something I loved was that the story creators allowed him to have feelings much more than anger. He’s got this tenderness about him that’s really carving the way for a new line of male heroes in a world that’s over saturated with one stereotype of guy. He’s been through trauma, but he copes without instantly going to anger. He even cried once. Which was actually shocking.
Another thing that really stood out to me is his tenderness with his droid companion, BD-1. (BD stands for Buddy Droid, I just learned and we thought he couldn’t get cuter!!) This little creature loves and depends on him and Cal gives it back and then some. I feel it goes beyond the man and his dog troupe. Cal goes out of his way to care for this little droid physically and emotionally, he cheers him up, compliments him, checks in on him, and treats him with genuine love. This stuff is really paving the way for more characters which depict non-toxic masculinity.
“You got this, Buddy. I believe in you. Come on.” (Not word for word cause that was 20 hours of game play ago.)
As for the game play, I found it a lot of fun. I noted earlier that this wasn’t an RPG, but it wasn’t really an action game either. Even though it had a strong adventure and story focus, this game does NOT shy away from the badass combat system. I found the light saber combat to be easily the best I’ve ever encountered in a game. They kept it simple, yet broke beyond simple button mashing. You can mix it up with Force powers, or just light saber combos, or a combination there of and really do some fun things.
What I enjoyed the most beyond the story, however, was the exploring! There’s chests all over the place in all of these nooks and crannies that reward you going around and just admiring how BEAUTIFUL this game is. Not to mention a pretty great (but sometimes a little funky) 3D holomap system that you can move around and help your very lost ass out of the temple that you’ve been doing puzzles in for the past three hours. (Who me? Lost in a game? Never!)
Fkin Brutal, Cal! DAMN!
The graphics in this game are BREATHTAKING. Maybe it’s just because I haven’t played a lot of games that have come out in the past year or so, but the RTX series graphics and even my 1660Ti do DAMN well to bring this game to the next level. From the first cut scene, my breath just left me. I couldn’t actually believe that I was playing a GAME. This was movie quality cut scenes and the characters were actors with motion capture. Every twitch of the eye was beautifully captured which only ended up pulling you into the story that much more. The reflections in the water and on metal surfaces. The little DETAILS they put in clothing and weathering of buildings and such are jaw dropping.
Besides the occasional over dramatic rag-doll physics getting stuck or the fact that Cal looks like he gels his hair in layers (now you won’t un-see it, sorrynotsorry), the physics engine is really on point. Even down to the basic ray tracing in the game and shadow effects, they were all brilliant. Besides those mentioned above, the only time I lost some reality was that bubble seemed to move through water as dark blurbs rather than ones of light. However, I was playing with a 1660Ti and not one of the fancy RTX enhanced Ray-Tracing for the extra light realize. That said, I was never pulled out of the flow of the game because of these things. Consider them ‘things I noted’ rather than ‘things Im complaining about.’
“Hey, BD! How’s my hair?” “Less hair product next time, kid, but look at the detail in your clothes and the reflection off my metal! WOW!”
The ONLY thing I will complain about are the GAWD DAMNED WALL RUNS! Holy crap guys! I am not a controller yeeter and I nearly performed a ‘big mad yeet’ (as the kids call it) with a couple these wall runs. I was seriously muttering the Jedi Code and pretend coaching my padawan ass through emotional control. That said, it is entirely possible that it was an operator error. I don’t have a tone of good movement or feeling in my hands, so maybe I wasn’t pushing things at the EXACT correct angle, but GAWED DAMN! So who knows? Did anyone else have issue with this? I could be just me!!
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
Last but not least I want to give some SERIOUS kudos to the sound team for this game as well. Every squishy foot step was perfect. The surround sound was perfectly formatted. Just like how the small visual details make a huge impact, so did the sounds. But it went more than just the foot falls on different types of terrain, it was the little clicks with BD, it was the voice modulations the troopers made with their witty banter, it was the ruffle of your clothing! There were just so MANY little details that I just had to take a moment to give them a HURRAY!
Also; Using the band: The HU, was a BOLD and BADASS choice. I recognized them instantly! (Look them up if you aren’t familiar!)
Overall I give this game a 5/5 stars. This is seriously a game that has appealed to me in every way. I liked really everything about it. EA really did a damn good job with this game and I hope we will get a Fallen Order 2. Which if you ask me seems pretty damn likely.
I for one, will be pre-ordering it the day it’s available.
Glitter and Games 